Lucifer, Season Two, Episode Five: Weaponizer

Last week's episode ended with Chloe getting into a car accident.  This is significant because Lucifer made a deal with God to save her life in exchange for taking his mother back to hell.  As we know, Lucifer didn't follow through on his end of the bargain.  It turns out that Chloe's accident wasn't an accident after all and was in fact orchestrated by Uriel.  That's right, there's a new angel in town to join Lucifer's dysfunctional family on earth. Even better, the role is played by Michael Imperioli.

Like all episodes, Weaponizer does have a crime which needs to be solved but this time, instead of the crime being used to highlight some existential problem Lucifer is dealing with, this week's crime seems to exist to show that Lucifer and Dan share a common love of action flicks of all things.  Their shared love causes them to repeat lines from the movies, high five each other and have a dudebro bond moment.  Perhaps this will make detective douche more palatable to Lucifer as the series continues.

What's interesting about Weaponizer is not the crime drama but the peril that Chloe is in and how Lucifer deals with it. When Uriel arrives, Lucifer isn't immediately concerned because he has a secret weapon in his back pocket - his older brother Amenadiel. Unfortunately, Amenadiel isn't quite himself and has lost his powers, a secret he has kept from Lucifer.  Maze however thinks that the solution is simple and suggests that Lucifer simply take mommy dearest back to hell and fulfill his end of the deal. Lucifer however is insistent that he is fulfilling the agreement because he is punishing his mother on earth.  Amenadiel tries to suggest that Lucifer should simply hide Chloe and their mother until Uriel gives up and returns home.  This is enough for Lucifer to suggest that maybe the problem is that Amenadiel has been on earth too long and forgotten the power that he is. Lucifer points out that Uriel is the younger brother and that as the eldest, they were all in a awe of him.  Amenadiel gets the idea that all Uriel needs to see is him in his full glory.

Amenadiel meets with Uriel on a rooftop wearing his angel outfit and looking fine as hell.

Amenadiel assures Uriel that he has everything under control but Uriel points out that not only is Lucifer living on earth but their mother is now.  Uriel claims that he only wants to help.  Amenadiel goes all bad ass and points out that he is Amenadiel and is the one who delivers the wrath of God not, Uriel the diminutive little brother.  This is enough for Uriel to cower a bit in fear and agree to go home.  Amenadiel believes his business is done and starts to leave but is stopped by Uriel, who punches him in the face. It seems that Uriel figured out right away that something was wrong with Amenadiel by the fact that Amenadiel spent so much time talking instead of kicking his ass.  Uriel releases his wings and proceeds to give Amenadiel the beat down he's been dying to issue since the dawn of the universe.

Once Upon a Time, Season 6, Episode 5: Street Rats

Time for a history lesson back to Agrabah, suffering under the yoke of Jafar, with poor people turned into rats for stealing (honestly this seems like a terrible way to deal with any problem, creating a plague of rodents).

Jasmin sneaks into the city to find someone she is sure can help her – Aladdin, the thief who can help her steal the Diamond in the Rough. He’s not exactly eager to help the dedicated Princess, but when she threatens to frame him for theft he gives in and joins her to the cave of wonders

Along the way we get some interesting little hints at more depth. While Jasmin is furious that Aladdin is so selfish, Aladdin points out that their city wasn’t exactly a utopia before Jafar arrived and really Jasmin only cares because Jafar has breached her happy rich bubble as a princess. It’s a nice analysis and suggests more nuance than Once Upon a Time usually applies to their monarchy. Of course, we could point out that we’re getting a nuance of a less than perfect but not outright evil royalty with Jasmin and the Sultan but not the oh-so-pure-and-inept Snow White.

In the cave we learn the obvious truth – Aladdin is the Diamond in the Rough and he even has magic, Saviour Magic. He can save Agrabah… though Jafar shows him the cost of that, Jafar shows him that Saviours have a short shelf life. He has a solution to that – the sheers of fate. They will cut Aladdin from his destiny as a Saviour – no longer a hero but no longer doomed to die.

Of course he doesn’t take it and swoops in to rescue Jasmin. Though Jafar leaves him with the sheers for the future. He also is still out there doing mischief. Despite chemistry Jasmin and Aladdin don’t become a couple because they’re focused on duty- or Jasmin is. She’s taken Aladdin’s words to heart and won’t run off with him when there are still flaws in their kingdom to address.

In the present Emma finds Jasmin, following birds and dead oracles. She’s sure that Jasmin isn’t the killer though because of that rarely remembered lie detecting power. Instead it gives Jasmin chance to talk about Aladdin the Saviour which offers Emma hope: because Aladdin is apparently alive. Aladdin alive means all Saviours don’t die. It means maybe Emma’s visions won’t come true, maybe Emma can live.

Westworld, Season One, Episode Four: Dissonance Theory

It's now episode four and it seems as though Westworld is beginning to journey into the rabbit hole now that we have some sense of who the players are.  We begin once gain with Bernard having a sit down with Dolores.  It's almost comforting at this point to see the same opening each week.  This week, they talk about the fact that Dolores has just seen her parents die and the grief she feels.  It's a direct parallel to the grief Bernard feels at the loss of his son.  Bernard offers to take the pain away from Dolores but she refuses because pain is all she has left of her parents. Unfortunately, after questioning, Dolores reveals that this is a scripted response.  Bernard however does offer Dolores a carrot - find the center of the maze and maybe you can be free. Yes, the same maze that the MIB (man in black) is looking for. 

When Dolores awakes back in the park she is with William and his soon to be Dudebro brother in-law Logan. Okay, this is a big one because it means Dolores's little conversation with Bernard was a flashback.  Does that mean that all of their chats so far have been flashbacks, handed out piecemeal each week? Considering that her parents are murdered nightly, we don't even know to which murder this conversation referred to. This however does come in line with one of my pet theories, William is the MIB thirty years ago.  This doesn't bode well for Dolores because his fascination with her moves from wanting to protect her to raping her repeatedly.  Hmmmm?  Possible? Yeah, I'm not sure yet. 

Like many of the fans watching this show, I have my own theories about what is going on and they all hedge on whether or not Westworld is telling a linear story or not.  Could it possibly be that William is the MIB?  He starts off wanting to play the hero and be the good guy but dudebro (read: Logan) having been forced on an adventure away from his robotic prostitutes wants fun in the form of violence and suggests that they go the black hat route.  William isn't down with this until dudebro threatens Dolores.  For some reason, even though he only saw her once in town, William is absolutely fascinated with her. 

For dudebro, Westworld is just one big game whereas for William, it's all still exciting and new (and not in a Love Boat type way either). It's why Dudebro has no problem with simply killing with expedience, leaving the staff to clean up his mess. It's why Dudebro believes that Dolores's sudden appearance in their camp is because the staff noticed William's fascination with her. It's why Dudebro was able to convince William to go black, by suggesting they had just discovered an Easter egg in the game - a chance for them to experience something few people do. If William is indeed the MIB, this could be the start of his craving to discover new things in Westworld.

Coyote's Creed (Broken Mirrors #1) by Vaughn R. Demont

Spencer Cain is barely making it through high school but it's not for lack of intelligence. With his mother battling mental illness, Spencer as no choice but to run cons to keep food on the table.  This all would have been so much easier if his deadbeat father hadn't decided to walk out one day.  When Spencer gets word that his long absent father has died, he believes that at least the man can do him and his mother no more harm, at least until he finds out the truth about who his father really was.  It seems that Spencer is half human and half Coyote.  This knowledge quickly launches Spencer into a supernatural world that he is scarce prepared to deal with despite the fact that he has spent his eighteen years running cons.

This book is pretty action and plot driven – we hit the ground running. Spencer learns he is supernatural and almost immediate begins charging through the plot at great speed. We quickly get him running head first into this world, pulling of tricks and learning as fast as he can do. We get some decent stories and history from Rourke and some entertaining hints of the nature of the competition between the three races, the sneaky, fun, yet sometimes lethal and serious nature of these prankster races constantly battling for bragging rights against each other.

It’s fun, it’s fast, it’s funny. Did I mention fun? Because that’s the main tone I have from this book, certainly to begin, Spencer is out of his depth but while so many protagonists would mope and despair, Spencer ran with it. I found myself reading this book extremely quickly because it happily pulled me in. It was one of those books where I blink and then see the book has finished.

The downside to this fun rocking charge through the plot is that the story doesn’t get into much depth with the world. Which is a real shame because I really really want to know. I want to know more about the powers of a Bard, the power of stories, I want to know more about the three races of tricksters, their histories, their powers, their natures, I want to know more about the curses

I love the idea that then Kitsune are meticulous planners while the Coyotes wing it and have a lot of luck to various degrees of success and stability. I like the idea that the three races of trickster have very different ways of being tricksters – this is great but I want to know far more about this. We only touch on it in passing and then leap forward to the next part of the plot. It generally works – I can still easily follow the book (though more information about the Sorcerers would have helped) but more would have helped a lot

I find Spencer to be a fun protagonist. He’s a rogue – but he’s not malicious with it. He’s fun, doesn’t take anything too seriously but isn’t so light hearted to be frustrating. His relationship with his mother is also utterly, painfully poignant – having to navigate around his mother’s mental illness, respecting her, loving her but deeply strained trying to support and help her. This really does bring out a part of Spencer’s character that is touching, caring and hurting that adds a lot of humanisation to the character. It’s powerful but there is a problem with mental illness basically being used as character development for another character. But it is extremely powerful – we don’t undermined his mother’s authority as his mother, nor the emotional bond between them and minors having to support parents with mental illnesses. It’s very real, very raw and very powerful

Spencer is bisexual – which is definitely a rare find in this genre. We hardly ever see LGBTQ protagonists in this genre and less bisexual male protagonists, so this definitely interests me

I also really like the way the sex is portrayed, being much more graphic than we often see, but also much less formulaic without unnecessary gender roles or patterns I see a lot

What I’m much less a fan of is Spencer’s sexual partner – Rourke. Rourke is an older bisexual man – and I’m quite happy to see an LGBTQ character be older and be portrayed as sexual and sexy (and not older in an “is thousand years old but looks 20” kind of way). This is definitely a plus. What isn’t so much is that Spencer at least begins the book referring to Rourke as “uncle” and clearly sees him in some level of, if not parental then certainly something close to it. No he’s not family, but he was a close friend of his parents and has clearly watched Spencer grow up. Further, some mojo between them makes Spencer and him especially horny. I’m not saying that it removed his consent but it likely increased the amount of sex they had. Finally Rourke announces his love for Spencer very quickly and tries to pressure Spencer into becoming his consort.

The Walking Dead, Season Seven, Episode One: The Day Will Come When You Won't Be

Okay people I'm giving you a spoiler alert. Don't read this if you haven't watched last night's episode.

On Friday, Sparky and I published a piece on our prediction as to who was going to die and as it turns out, we were both wrong. 

For months now, whenever someone mentioned The Walking Dead, it was all about who was going to die on tonight's episode.  The writers didn't make it easy for us and made us deal with the aftermath first.  Rick's loss and rage plays center stage and he deals with it by threatening to kill Negan, which of course was not the reaction that Negan wanted.  Negan wanted Rick and his group to be defeated, to feel powerless and to be broken.  

Negan's first act was to take out Abraham.  As horrible as it may sound, I actually felt relief seeing Abraham die, falsely believing in that moment that the worst was over.  The truth of the matter is that Abraham was supposed to die in the episode where Denise died and so it simply felt as though the writers held over Abraham's death so that they could open with it this season.  Abraham died well, telling Negan to, "suck his balls".  I'm going to miss Abraham and his wonderful one liners, his burgeoning relationship with  Sasha and even his friendship with Eugene.  In many ways, Abraham's character was in a good place and that, as we know, is how the writers like to leave a character before they kill them off.  

Abraham as it turns out was only the appetizer to the main meal.  Seeing Abraham smashed remains an enraged Darryl attacks and actually manages to punch Negan in the face.  For me, that was probably the most satisfying punch to date. Only Tyrion slapping Joffery felt better.  With all things  Negan however, there's a price to pay for challenging his authority.  Negan decides that an example must be made and he goes onto his next victim.

Class, Season One, Episodes One and Two: For Tonight We May Die & The Coach With The Dragon Tattoo

As a Whovian who is desperately missing Doctor Who, I latched onto this with some desperation. Damn you Moffat for taking away the Doctor for a year.  Class is yet another Doctor Who spin off (Sarah Jane Adventures, Torchwood) and it's based on the idea that Arton Energy has worn down the fabric of space and time and now aliens are able to slip into the school and cause havoc.  This makes sense, given the Doctor's brief position as a caretaker there and of course, Clara and Danny Pink both worked there as teachers. In the case of Danny, as a math teacher, much to the Doctor's surprise.

Okay, so that's the set up for Class. We are very quickly introduced to the main players: Charlie, Miss Quill, April, Tanya and Ram.   Right off the top, the most visible point is that two of the five main characters are of colour.  Class, doesn't stop there because Ram, is disabled, and Charlie is gay.  As much as I love Doctor Who, it certainly hasn't been as inclusive as it's often given credit for, so I was surprised by Class.

Charlie and Miss Quill are both aliens who have been brought to earth to live out their lives in peace by the Doctor because they are the last of their kind.  Everyone on their planet has been killed by the Shadow Kin - an alien race who moves in shadows and kills when in their physical form. This isn't the first time we've seen aliens who use the dark to their advantage in this universe.  An alien antagonist on Doctor Who has to either be outright ridiculous (yes, I'm thinking of the Daleks) or terrifying, like the Vashta Nerada who we met in Silence in the Library.  Unfortunately, the Shadow Kin are neither really.  I didn't feel the fear of the dark that the Vashta Nerada inspired with their ability to skin people alive, nor did I find myself laughing at their proclamations the way I do the Daleks.  In terms of aliens, the Shadow Kin felt kind of been there done that and not at all inspiring.

Miss Quill makes no secret of her desire to kill the Shadow Kin but she's held in check by Charlie, who's actually a prince.  It seems that Miss Quill has a device in her hand which puts her natural instinct to kill in check and she can only act to protect Charlie. Miss Quill, with her disdain of teaching and her love of violence is full of absolute win. Miss Quill very much feels as though she is Charlie's slave and he repeatedly defends his control of her as punishment for the uprising she lead on their planet. The Doctor also believes that Miss Quill needs punishment but for killing a student at the school.

The main characters all come together to defeat the Shadow Kin with a little help from the Doctor, who makes a timely appearance.  Having had the veil of ignorance blown, our little band is now tasked with fighting off whatever slips through to earth.

The Vampire Diaries, Season 8, Episode 1: Hello Brother

So begins the last season of The Vampire Diaries (before we have a much more awesome Bonnie spin-off. Hey I can hope, right?)

Damon and Enzo were captured by whatever it was The Armoury had decided to stash in the basement and then they went off on a killing spree

This was apparently a bad killing spree rather than, y’know, their regularly scheduled weekend killing spree that happens all the time and we tend to ignore it because protagonist!

When we catch up with them they’re luring people to a serial killing warehouse, targeting evil people (this means their killing spree under the control of the Vault Monster Enzo and Damon are actually more moral in their killing for the Vault Monster than they are when they have their usual fun slaughter fest). The evil people are then put on meat hooks lowered into a pool with the nasty looking monster and promptly eaten. Their remains then left to decorate the ceiling, as one does. Just because you’re mind controlled by a watery serial killer with some kind of conscience doesn’t men you can neglect the interior decorating

Enzo despairs and is angry and sad and generally not happy but this state of affairs

While Damon is almost indifferent – because he’s pretty much broken. He’s turned off his humanity switch to deal with what he’s being forced to do, he’s lost all hope and generally despaired of anything getting better ever. He’s even reduced to reading Fifty Shades of Grey

Bonnie and Stefan are still looking for Damon and Enzo and Bonnie is succumbing to utterly bleak despair, clinging to the memories of Enzo and her to try and convince us that this relationship wasn’t made up with no basis after one of the writers got into the hard drugs and everyone was still desperately trying to find an excuse to keep Enzo around because he was too hot to dispose of.

Stefan can Caroline are now a thing in their on again off again on again off again on again off again romance. Caroline and Alaric still co-parent their (kinda) little girls and have new nanny Selene to help patch things up.

I have to say Caroline and her desperate attempt to organise everything and her constant worrying and fretting to be the only character I’m still invested in. I mean, I like Bonnie, but I honestly just want her to leave Mystic Falls so far behind her that she’ll forget everything about this place.

Van Helsing, Season 1, Episode 6: Nothing Matters

Well. Shit. That episode was an utter kick in the teeth and the feels. But looking back, at the end, what exactly could they have done differently? I mean, I know what they could have done – but that’s easy to say when you don’t have to live with the decision. I know what the “right” answer is – but the right answer comes with a vast amount of risk which is easy to discount when you’re not taking it.

So, the other plot lines first:

Vanessa and Susan make their way through the tunnels filled with naked feral mutant vampires. They get out and, in the process, have some excellent bonding moments and shows us really clearly what excellent friends they are. They get free – but not before Vanessa is bitten

Julius’s minion tries to follow but eventually retreats, scared off by the mutant vampires. Julius isn’t convinced Vanessa is dead, he knows protagonist plot armour when he sees it.

Sheema’s resistance cell uses her information to run right into an ambush. Oopsie. The survivor of the ambush blames this on Sheema and is willing to torture and kill her for her betrayal but she is saved by… Rebecca. Ominous sexy vampire who let her go last episode

Sheema didn’t betray the resistance but, as Rebecca told her, she “has her scent”. She could smell where Rebecca was and which tunnels she’d been in. With this cell dead she now wants clues to the Resistance leader – known as Taka. And she’s going to use Sheema to get it

Now to the hospital – and one of Brandon’s group and the little girl Callie go exploring and decide all the dramatic “stop” “keep out” signs are just there for funsies and set off one of Axel’s booby traps which would have killed Callie if she weren’t a little girl and short.

Brandon’s group, especially the woman who saw Callie nearly die, is absolutely enraged and furious and wants to kill Axel for this

Ok, there’s a whole lot of reasons why I’d want to kill Axel dead. But him booby trapping his besieged base of operations while constantly being under attack by vampires and then having the decency to warn people about said booby traps isn’t one of them. It’s quite reasonable, this is actually one decision of Axel’s I actually agree with